Michael Goodwin: Trump and Vance are rattled on Iran —and their attacks on Israel prove it

An essential and great ally one day, road kill the next.

Such is Israel’s topsy-turvey relationship with the Trump White House. 

The wild swings offer the clearest example yet of how widespread criticism of the generous deal with Iran is rattling the administration. 

As dizzying events demonstrate, Trump himself is riding an emotional roller coaster. 

Axios, citing administration insiders, reports that the president unloaded on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Monday phone call. 

“You’re f–king crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” the outlet quoted the president as saying. 

From there, the job of beating up the Jewish state was left to Vice President JD Vance, who fired off a series of extraordinary insults. 

He started in a White House press briefing notable for his brutal scolding of Israeli critics with language that tracked Trump’s Netanyahu tirade. 

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” the Veep declared. 

He added, “the other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump.” 

Aren’t we allies? 

Treating Israel as a nation of ingrates was bad, but worse charges were yet to come as Vance defended the beleaguered memorandum of understanding by insisting that Israel and Iran should be treated equally in key ways. 

As when he said, “Israel doesn’t give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. The Iranians don’t give up the right of self-defense in their country.” 

And then, “it’s very simple. You can’t tell a country, whether Israel or Iran, they’re not allowed to have any self-defense.” 

His logic is absurd on its face, because America went to war with three stated goals: destroying Iran’s nuclear program, diminishing its missile stockpiles and ending its support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. 

And yet here is Vance acting as if Israel, our mighty and loyal ally, is a problem for the sin of defending itself against Hezbollah. 

Vice President JD Vance conducts a briefing in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC. MediaPunch / BACKGRID

He neglects the key fact, which is that the terror group, sworn to the destruction of Israel, has taken over Lebanon and hides behind civilians in schools and apartment buildings as it fires rockets and missiles into northern Israel cities and towns. 

Twisting the knife, Vance talks in ways that would make jihadists proud.

“What gets the President frustrated sometimes is that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement,” he said, “and then all of a sudden there’s a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That’s not acceptable.” 

Once again, he failed to note any difference between terrorists and the Israeli defense forces. He followed that with more even-handed mush. 

“We do not want Hezbollah attacking Israel, but in order to ensure that happens, we have got to actually build the kind of regional framework that can cut off the money to Hezbollah, cut off Iranian support for Hezbollah, and also ensure that Lebanon’s territorial sovereignty is respected by all parties.” 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a news conference in Jerusalem on June 15, 2026. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

He neglected to say that Hezbollah’s very existence and presence is a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty. 

His habit of false equivalence reveals that no disarming or dismantling of Hezbollah is likely. 

Trump used similar words at the G7 summit in Europe, suggesting that Iran having missiles was not a reason to block the deal. 

“If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” he insisted.

“If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say that in relative proportion, I think it’s OK.” 

Somebody ought to check the White House water. 

Meanwhile, Trump used a public appearance Friday to reverse his tone on Netanyahu. 

“We fought very well with Israel, and we’ve had a great relationship with Israel,” he said, calling Netanyahu a “warrior prime minister.” 

“They should give him credit,” Trump said.

“We really fought hard with Israel.” 

Vance, however, didn’t get the memo that there was a new message.

In a podcast, he dug himself into a deeper hole by raising the canard of dual loyalty of American supporters of Israel, accusing them of failing to separate US and Israeli interests, saying “they’re not always the same.” 

Oh, please. 

He compounded the insult by saying there is a wide tendency of “always conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred, because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred,” he told podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey. 

Asked whether the growing criticism of Israel in the GOP was “a bigger problem than the ‘Israel first crowd,’ ” Vance ducked. 

“I see both, and I think both are bad,” he insisted, saying he was trying to defend the deal “and I find often the arguments are, ‘Israel doesn’t think this is good, therefore it’s bad.’ ” 

If he hopes to be a serious presidential candidate in two years, he must stop sounding like he’s channeling Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. 

From there, Vance was off to the races again, saying “Israel’s opinions matter, but fundamentally they are separate.” 

After acknowledging that much of the Israeli political system and population are unhappy with the deal, he said, “But I also think they’re picking up on some misinformation about the deal and running with it and sort of panicking about it.” 

Insulting 

That was insulting enough, but he wasn’t finished, saying, “I find this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust.” 

A timely example of that mistrust made a dramatic appearance on Friday’s front page of an Israeli newspaper owned by Miriam Adelson, a longtime Trump megadonor who gave his last campaign a reported $100 million. 

Israel Hayom bannered the letter, which accuses the president of “betraying” Israel. 

“You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” veteran writer Danny Zaken said in addressing Trump.

He called the deal “a surrender agreement with a murderous and cruel terror regime” and warned that “you turned over the hourglass toward the next war, which your successors will have to deal with in the years to come.” 

Trump now has a 60-day window to finalize a stronger, better deal.

He and Vance also must treat their allies like friends and realize that, despite the pounding it took, Iran remains an Islamist autocracy hell-bent on regional domination.